nulmeridianen

Nulmeridianen, also known as the Prime Meridian, is an imaginary line of longitude on the Earth that divides the world into the Eastern Hemisphere and the Western Hemisphere. It is defined as the line of 0 degrees longitude. Historically, several meridians have been used as the prime meridian, but the most commonly accepted one today is the one that passes through Greenwich, London, England. This is why it is often referred to as the Greenwich Meridian.

The establishment of the Greenwich Meridian as the international standard was a significant achievement in cartography and navigation. Before its widespread adoption, different countries and even different institutions used their own prime meridians, leading to confusion and inaccuracies in maps and voyages. The International Meridian Conference held in Washington D.C. in 1884 formally adopted the Greenwich Meridian, largely due to Britain's extensive maritime dominance at the time and the fact that a majority of the world's shipping charts already used it.

The Nulmeridianen is crucial for defining time zones. The Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) is based on the Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), which is the mean solar time at the prime meridian. Time zones around the world are calculated as offsets from UTC. For example, Eastern Standard Time (EST) in North America is UTC-5, meaning it is five hours behind the Nulmeridianen. The line itself is a reference point for all longitude measurements on Earth, with eastward longitudes designated as East and westward longitudes as West.